Thursday 31st October - Still in Europe

Still in Europe, but for how much longer? I don't even want to think about leaving. It has been such an ill-tempered, badly-thought-out, warped and distorted wrangle from start until - well, it's not finished yet.

Moving on, moving on...

If anyone comes trick or treating tonight I'm not sure what we'll be able to give them. I've eaten every scrap of chocolate, and we have no biscuits in the house. They can have a carrot - maybe that will help them see in the dark. I'm not a great Halloween fan, and I've never been trick or treating. Aha, I've just remembered - I think there may be some party blowers in the drawer left over from Christmas - just gone to check - yes. Good.

I've been at home all day. Luxury. Although I earned it by sending out invoices to the piano pupils. Then I discovered that I forgot that lessons at one school are meant to be £11 for twenty minutes, not £10. So I have diddled myself out of £25. I really can't be bothered - I made such a mess of last term's invoices that I'll live with the consequences.

The next big thing on the list is The Dreaded Tax Return. Ugh. One of the real pains is that my teaching year is September to July, and the tax year is April to April. I start a new register and folder and everything in September for the school year, and then have to wangle the information across two school years - which means two record books -  to get the figures. That's the bit I did this afternoon. I deserve chocolate.

Yesterday was a Major Achievement Day -  I stayed home then as well, and took on the kitchen floor. The kitchen isn't that big - I scuffled over it tile by tile, doing it pretty thoroughly, including the cupboard doors and the trolleys where the cats sleep and various things are stored.

But then, because I was working at floor level, I came nose to nose with the oven door. I like stained glass as a concept, and would love to have some panels in the house. But maybe not the oven door, even though it had become a pleasant caramel/brown colour, as in a good creme caramel desert topping. Unfortunately it is meant to be clear glass.

And here's some useful information; if you coat the surface of the glass with neat fairy liquid, and leave it to do its stuff, adding more from time to time, the fairies in the liquid will soften up all the grease and a moderately light effort with the nylon scourer will deal with it in a most satisfying way. Even the little hard lumps of brown-ness gave way eventually. See, see, lookee, lookee in the second picture above. Looks like newish.

The piano is looking very clean and dusted - that's because the piano tuner came yesterday morning. However the dining room table has reverted to its usual state of overloaded chaos. Hey ho. We should up-size; down-sizing is never going to work for us.

The triffid grows apace;

That picture is from yesterday afternoon. It was warm enough, just, for me to sit outside in the sun for half an hour with a cup of coffee;

   but I chose the chair that was further away from the triffid, just in case....

And now for 'show-and-tell'

I am immensely proud of having completed six hats for the 'Shoeboxes-for-Roumania' appeal; we will be packing them at church on Sunday.

These are crochet - I learned how to make them from youtube, and even how to start with a magic circle - whoop whoop. Our Canadian friends may notice the similarity between the smallest hat, on top of the pile, and a tea cosy in their possession...



These are knitted. I switched to crochet after making these, as sewing up knitting is not a favourite activity, and knitting them completely in the round brings other challenges when you start decreasing the stitches.

However, that's four lots of odds and ends of yarn used up, gone, removed from the house. Hooray and worth the effort.

Saturday 26 October - Half term!!!!

Half term! We got there!

Working backwards from right now;

I have dealt with this morning's mini-crisis involving cat litter and granola. Now I remember exactly how prickly cat litter is when you walk on it with bare feet. (Why have we got a litter tray in the kitchen - all will be revealed soon.) Anyway, I had come down to make breakfast to take back upstairs for it's-half-term-at-last-and-I'm-not-working-this-Saturday breakfast in bed. As I pondered whether I would sweep up the litter now or later, the problem was resolved when the packet of chocolate chip granola threw itself down from the top of the fridge, landed upside-down on my head and filled my world with toasted crunchy nutty grains and chocolate flakes. Sweeping suddenly became a priority.

So, the current crisis is a complete cat flap fail. At half past eleven last night we discovered that our electronic catflap's electronics are finished, done for, over, dysfunctional, kaput.

We spent a fruitless hour changing batteries, changing the changed batteries, pressing the reset buttons, removing the batteries, leaving it for ten minutes and starting all over again, going back to factory reset... nothing, nada, rien.

At least that meant we didn't have to reconfigure the microchip recognition whatsits, which entails feeding each cat in and out of the cat flap several times (in the dark, at midnight.

But we did have to investigate the shed to find the cat litter tray, (luckily we had litter left from when Leo had her teeth out in the Summer).

We went to bed early this morning leaving the cats taking turns trying to force the cat flap open.

Later this morning - like - as soon as the shops were open - he went to try the local pet shops for a replacement, and our current in-out arrangements for the cats look like this;

the kitchen door wedged open with the cat scratch pedestal which is a real pain in our small kitchen and never gets used for scratching. I'm thinking of replacing it with a stool which we can sit on as well as the cats. Fortunately the wind is blowing away from the back of the house and it is not a frosty morning.

Yesterday morning was dentist day, which is why we have the tribe home for the weekend. If you know us, you already know that historically going to the dentist (the surgery is 20 miles away) is an all-day family outing. This is because I started going to this practice before I was born, as, back in the 1950s, this was the first dentist that my mother ever managed to go to more than once. (All the others in her experience must have been fiends.) It was a complete shock to me the first time I went to another dentist when I was a student a long was North, and discovered that you had a checkup one day, and returned a week or so later for treatment. We'd always been checked over and had the fillings done at the same time.

The dentist from the 1950s has retired and gone to dentist heaven, and his successor has more or less retired, but his daughter is there, so all will be well for the future.

We all escaped with checkups and clean-and-polish.
Excellent.
I was working hard at mind control, projecting the following commands with all my mental strength;

'I do not grind my teeth and do not need a mouthguard at night'
'There are no cavities'
'Whatever it is you are probing at is fine, you can stop doing that anytime soon'

I'm clearly improving my psychic control powers.

We visited my godmother - she seems to be living on a diet of

breakfast - rice krispies and cocoa chimps (a version of coco-pops, and monkey is not listed as an ingredient), hot chocolate to drink
lunch - a few bits of marinaded herrings with a small bit of boiled potato and a ryvita-style cracker, and a cup of boullion made with vegetable boullion powder
supper - baked beans and a small portion of stewed apple and a fortisip drink
and about half a small bottle of fizzy water per day

I'm not sure that I would thrive on such a diet... but she seems none the worse for it. She has abandoned the frozen meals service she was using - 'they don't use any garlic, or onions or anything with any Taste!'

We buy various meals and items from the supermarket to see if we can tempt her - avocados worked for a couple of weeks, and Waitrose Duchy soups, but not any more. Hey ho. You can but try.

                                                                    **** **** ****
If I am sounding out of breath, it is because I have paused from sitting comfortably on an ergonomic chair to type the blog, to crouching down at floor level to push cross and irritable cats through the flap of the new cat flap in order to register their microchips. 'Mioul, mioul,' they cry, slithering out of my grip as I try and cram them through the little porchway to the flap. They are not grateful for all we are doing.

Last Thursday, and Wednesday, and Tuesday, and Monday, have all evaporated into the mist of 'Les temps perdu' and I'm not sure that it is worth 'cherchez-ing' them - I'll have notes in my diary, no doubt, for someone to write up when I am famous. Like 'it rained all day' or 'we were able to sit and have a coffee in the garden this afternoon' - that was Tuesday, come to think of it, when he - now read this, and admire him - he walked up to the school where I had been teaching to meet me and carry my bags home as we walked back. Yup. That's the kind of lovely man he is.

Saturday 19th October - Finding my balance

Seven hard weeks of teaching this half of term and all other things that needed to be done...

Yes - I was coping fine - and would have coped fine for next week as well - I am a grownup, I have had children, (my usual mantras) and I have a husband who looks after me brilliantly even though he, too is having to deal with all the driving and housekeeping...

But this unexpected weekend off, thanks to the car being out of action until it goes to the garage on Tuesday, has been a real blessing.

Today has been an oasis of time - time without other people - Saturdays are usually filled between 8am and 6pm with teaching and travelling and so forth.

Today has been sleeping in, and reading and writing stuff.

It has been finishing off another of the shoebox-for-Roumania Christmas hats and getting going on the next

It has been sorting out the poor camelia that I was given about four years ago, which has been sitting it a tub of the wrong kind of earth, in full sun ever since. Today we planted it up in a tub of ericaceous compost in a shadier spot.

We have also discovered a small holly bush at that end of the garden which survived the Great Upheaval, so cleared away the nearby weeds to see how it will get on.

I've planted some beans - whether they are Magic ones which will lead us to the Giant's hoard of gold, or just plain ol' broad beans like the picture on the packet remains to be seen. I guess I'll know tomorrow.

I even got out my paintbox and did a bit of painting in my diary...

It was only after I'd finished that a realised I'd used the page for the first week of November. They are scenes to remind me of my walk home from school on Thursday. I think I'm ok about the duck on the right looking like a dog, and one of the ducks in the pond looking more like a puppy having a swim. As dogs they are pretty good.

Friday 18th October - Musings about books

Last night, as I was in that pleasant half awake, half asleep state, the books I am reading all merged themselves into a confusion.

Which books am I reading?

Beside the bed

Miss Garnet's Angel, by Sally Vickers - I read it several years ago on the recommendation of a friend. I find I have forgotten almost all of the plot. All I can remember is that ever since I read it I have wanted to go to Venice, which is the setting for the story. This means that I can enjoy it all over again, with no idea of how it is going to turn out. Because it is Venice, and the story of Tobias and the Angel is interwoven in the plot, there is a lot of visiting churches and musing on Angels and other aspects of religion and life and so on along the way.
 

Remix - a 'Bible in one year' plan, using the Eugene Peterson paraphrase called 'The Message'
I don't know how well I well get on with this. The last time I did a 'Bible in a Year' scheme it took me two years, with a a lot of skim reading through Leviticus and Numbers. I'm most of the way through Numbers, and also part-way through Romans ( you get a chunk of Old Testament and a chunk of New to read every day). Well I confess I have been skimming again., although every so often they stop detailing Wave-offerings and Peace-offerings and all the minute details of the law, and a story that I recognise suddenly appears. Last night I came across the story of Balaam's ass, and I now realise that I had confused it with a fable of La Fontaine. Balaam's ass features Angels. I waited in vain for the donkey to be loaded with salt and repeatedly lighten its load by falling in a stream, whereupon the owner loaded it with sponges to teach it a lesson. That must be part of the fable.

Letters to Alice; on reading Jane Austen by Fay Weldon. The only Fay Weldon I have ever read. It is a series of letters, as the title say, and as well as discussing Jane Austen's novels includes all kinds of ideas on what being a writer is all about.  I'm reading it in smallish chunks as there is a lot to think about.

Other books that I keep ready for those moments when I only want to read for a short while are

Stephen King's famous book 'On Writing' which is frequently recommended as a guide for aspiring writers. Part autobiography, part guide, it is another one to be read in small chunks and pondered.

and The Cloister Walk by the American poet Kathleen Norris. I've had this book on my shelf for ages; someone I follow on twitter was offering it to anyone who wanted it, as he had two copies and wanted to give the spare away. On the basis of his recommendation I asked for it, but then it kind of sat about for some years. Now seems to be exactly the right time for the book. She is documenting a year in her life when she is writing and lecturing at a University and also staying at a Benedictine monastery which her husband is away on an extended trip. The substance, so far, seems to be observations about the monastic and spiritual life as well as what it means to be a poet.


While this looks like a weird mixture of books to be reading all at the same time, there are threads which interconnect them and twine together in ways I hadn't planned or bargained for. Which is why the whole lot of them got completely wound together in my head last night, so that I had to make myself wake up a bit in order to sort them all out again. 


That's not all though...

   

I've got Educated by Tara Westover, and the New Testament letters written by John  and Jude queued up for the two book clubs I am in, with deadlines approaching in a few week's time. I am determined to finish Miss Garnet before I start anything else otherwise the situation tips over from ridiculous to plain insane. (Although I might pick up  Miss Read's gentle and easy-going Village Diary for a bit of light relief over the weekend...)   

Friday 18th October - Books

I was involved in a Facebook 'challenge to post a book a day for seven days, without commenting on the book, and pass on the challenge to a friend.

There were my choices, and at last I can comment!

They are not in the order I posted them because I can't find the energy to jiggle the pictures about...

I am a member of a local book club, and I have a feeling this was the first book I read after I joined, a year or so ago. It is a most extraordinary read. Dense pages of prose, long sentences, almost 'stream of consciousness, telling the story of two young Irish lads who fled the famine of Ireland to find themselves embroiled in the American Civil war. I'd never read anything like it before, and found it mesmerising.

This was the first 'Miss Read' book I ever came across, when I was about fifteen and was lost for something to read. Hooked. The gentle and compassionate way the various characters are described is so soothing. I prefer the 'Fairacre' stories to the ones set in the neighbouring village of Thrush Green, as the latter are somehow more formulaic. Didn't stop me from reading them all; excellent for getting one in the right frame of mind for going to sleep.

Another first - my introduction to Georgette Heyer's romantic historical fiction - I was given a copy to read by my mother - when? - I don't know. Maybe I was about thirteen at the time? This was the edition - I've still got it, I think, but hardly dare open it in case the pages crumble to dust.

 

I'm reading this at the moment; it is one of those books, like 'The Morville Hours' by... can't remember... that takes a long time to read. It is a sort of journal and noticings and thinkings about; Kathleen Norris is a poet (I must hunt down her poems) who is studying and teaching at a University in America and at the same time spending time in a Benedictine Monastery. I'm starting it over again; the book begins in October, and I had reached mid-November in the text, but have decided to go back and keep pace with the year, not getting ahead of myself. The book doesn't have a chapter for every day, but there is s much in each section that it bears re-reading.  

This is one from my childhood. I love the drawings, and the puns, and the story, and the pies, and the dragon, and the boat, and the sea, and the moon, and everything. I want a purple crayon. When I went looking for this on the internet I found a whole load of modern more or less 'appropriate' cartoons... go and see for yourself.

Another book club choice - a mystery detective ghost fantasy story set in rural Ireland. Loved it.

Lastly, but not leastly, the Little House in the Big Woods series. When I was ten, our family went skiing in Austria and, oh horrors, did not take enough books for me and my brother to read. Luckily we were on holiday with Austrian family friends, and their children went to an English school. They brought a couple of English books with them for us to read - the first two in this series - and I fell in love with the stories and the soft charcoal illustrations. I have the complete set in paperback, acquired over the years, and now in the condition where, once again I hardly dare open them to re-read.

Friday 11th October - Flowers in the rain

Isn't there a song? 'I'm just sitting watching flowers in the rain'

Oh yes and it was the first song played on Radio 1.

And I love this Debussy Jardins sous la pluie  although I can't play it, unlike this ten-year-old

Anyway, it is raining here today. He has taken our little car to the garage as it keeps producing a warning symbol on the display, without any clue as to what is wrong. I am having a 'morning off'; it should be a whole day but the afternoon has been hi-jacked by a committee meeting - blah blah blah.

So, I have been catching up;

researching woodworm, death's watch beetle and dry rot for the book, and yes, I did ring someone up and explain that the farmhouse I am renovating is purely imaginary and how much would it cost to get the beetles and the dry rot fixed?

thinking about the next bits of writing

researching medieval men's names - d'ya'know, choosing names for people in the book is really tricky. One of the characters is turning out to be a right bstrd, and I will have to change his name as it is the same as a friend's husband. Not saying who. Don't bother to ask. He started out ok - the character, I mean. The husband, as far as I know, is a thoroughly decent chap.

making chikenduzas - a Zimbabwe candy cake. I've just taken them out of the oven - they are not going to look like the picture, not least because I have used mini loaf tins, and don't have any pink food colouring. At the moment they are solid and rubbery to touch - the proof will be in the eating once they have cooled down.

The committee meeting is the AGM of the Womens' World Day of Prayer thingy. Next year is 'Zimbabwe' , so I'm testing recipes for the coffee morning.

(Before baking)

Finally, doing some arty stuff

 Which is where the 'flowers in the rain' bit comes in... as I was out raking pictures in the rain.

Here's the photo for the picture above.

The passion flowers have been a delight - more and more and still more to come

The triffid is about to flower - I have no idea what it will look like. It will be walking round the garden catching the pigeons next. 

Wednesday 9th October - How the weeks go by

Yesterday was a bit full-on, so much so that when we were in Waitrose/John Lewis at about 6pm we had forgotten that we had already been there at 7.30 am.

But that's what happens with a day that starts with buying pickled herrings at early-o'clock and finishes with buying a chromebook at wine-o'clock (not that we did open a bottle of wine).

The herrings were for my godmother. We were on a mission to get her to her echocardiogram appointment at 10.30, in a town 45 miles away. She's 91, still up and about but not very steady, so it was all a bit of a project, but everything went surprisingly smoothly, and we even remembered to give her the herrings. Himself also removed an electric adapter plug which 'gave me a bit of a nip when I plugged that lamp in'; the adapter plug is now in the bin as being a danger to life and limb;

My word, that was a bit of a close call. All that copper was completely exposed.


The chromebook is for my father; he wants a 'portable computer' to make notes on when he goes away, which he does frequently. He likes to make notes on his travels, but prefers to type rather than write (now, me, I prefer to write with a fountain pen rather than type - each to their own). Himself is hoping to get the thing setup ready for the next adventure.

Monday 7th was A Good Day - all teaching of course - but the lessons went very well indeed. Explaining why a Dominant 7th arpeggio in C starts on a G and doesn't have an F# takes some doing, but I managed it reasonably well, twice. I might even have solved an intractable 'how do I learn the fingering for it?' for a cellist;
 here's an example for an E flat arpeggio

You didn't expect it to make sense did you? 

Sunday - church in the morning, and I think we did nothing for the rest of the day. Except I cast on the stitches to knit a hat; we are collecting to send Christmas present boxes to Roumania - fill a shoe box with a mix of essentials - like toothbrushes, can you believe it, and hair combs - there is such poverty as doesn't bear thinking about -and hats are one of the items.

Saturday - teaching in the morning, and that went ok, then to see how my godmother, and help with her post, and mend things and so on.

Friday - now we are getting too long ago. I would have to read my diary....   

and it's now about time to start singing 'Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go...'

Tuesday 8th October - Inktober 1st - 7th October

There's a 'thing' going on - #Inktober - that I'm trying to keep up with.

The idea is that you do an ink sketch/drawing/doodle every day...

Here goes;

Tuesday 1st October - using the ballpoint pen with the Bamboo paper app on my tablet

Wednesday 2nd October - the ink version and then after I coloured it

Thursday 3rd October - From my diary, which I write up at bedtime. By Thursday I am usually feeling 'done' with people; I will have taught 42 lessons since Monday morning and I find all I want to do is sit and surf the net...

The picture reminds me of the little scribbly illustrations my Grandmother ('Oma) used to add to her letters

Friday 4th October - This is a bit of a cheat. The keyboard for my tablet (actually a Lenovo Yogabook) can be switched to a Wacom tablet. You can then place an image on the tablet and trace over it, and hey presto, you are drawing on the screen! So, meet the models in a clothing catalogue...

this is from the book that I use for quotations and notes from what I am reading. If I want to be able to find a particular passage again, I do a doodle to help me recognise the page. If you can make the word out, these are from a book by Fay Weldon called 'Letters to Alice; on reading Jane Austen'

Saturday 5th October  - Again, from from my diary; a 'scribble' sketch

Sunday 6th - where is doodle? You'll just have to pretend I did it in white on white...

Monday 7th - Using the brush pen tool with the Bamboo Paper app on my tablet. I didn't like it at first, but this time round I'm rather pleased. I see I have allocated it to the 6th and the 7th!

Wednesday 2nd October - now I see it, then it is forgotten

I saw this, stopped, admired, took a photograph,

of the ivy growing along a fence post just next to where I parked the car outside a school this glorious bright clear morning

and then, two hours and five pupils later I had entirely forgotten all about it.

Luckily I HAD taken a photograph, and later on can sketch it into my diary as a memory jogger for this week .